Gifted Education Podcast - The Prufrock Press Blog

Parents are often presented with a menu of learning opportunities for talented kids. From special accelerated classes and dual-enrollment college programs, to homeschooling and online courses, the decisions about quality learning opportunities can seem endless. In this podcast, I sit down with Carol Fertig, the author of, Raising a Gifted Child: A Parenting Success Handbook, in order to help make sense of some of these many options.

Best-selling author Laurie Westphal discusses exciting strategies for teaching gifted students in a mixed-ability classroom. In this podcast, we explore practical ways to ensure that gifted students are engaged and challenged.

Today’s topic is one that impacts gifted kids in schools on a regular basis. In the past, gifted children often were placed into special gifted classes or accelerated learning groups. The thinking went that gifted children learned at a faster pace than other kids, and if you could group gifted children together it was easier for those students and their teachers to move at a faster pace through the class’ subject matter. However, the practice of grouping students by ability has become a controversial topic in many schools. As a result, during the last few years we have seen the dismantling of special gifted classes. We’ve seen teachers move away from the use of ability groups in their classrooms. How are gifted students affected by this change and does it make sense to move away from ability grouping?